From the Gaelic for ‘water of life’

Posted on March 17, 2012 by oddmanout215

Leave it to the Irish to write a song in which the miracle of resurrection is achieved through spilled whiskey (from the Gaelic for “water of life”). This version of “Finnegan’s Wake,” by my deceased mother’s favorite band, brings back memories of the many resurrections I witnessed as a child.

Posted in arts, humor | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bank on BofA ripping you off

Posted on March 17, 2012 by oddmanout215

Matt Taibbi starts his new Rolling Stone article with a Shock and Awe-style barrage of over-the-top analogies:

At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we’ll all be paying for until the end of time… Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they’ll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world’s worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt’s funeral. They’re out of control, yet they’ll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard…

Then Tiabbi dissects BofA’s large-scale scams and puts to rest the rumor that the Obama administration ever intended to make the bank pay back most of the money it stole. He takes a moment to strafe Hugh McColl, the driving force behind BofA’s expansion, a swaggering sack of shit who rewarded successful underlings with crystal hand grenades. He drops a cluster bomb on what’s left of BofA’s credibility:

In sum, Bank of America torched dozens of institutional investors with billions in worthless loans, repeatedly refused to abide by contractual obligations to buy them back, evaded hundreds of millions in local fees and taxes, pushed tens of thousands of people into foreclosure using phony documents, ignored multiple court orders to stop its illegal robo-signing, and exploited President Obama’s signature mortgage-relief program. The bank fixed the bids on bonds for schools and cities and utilities all over America, and even conspired to try to game the game itself – by fixing global interest rates!

All this before he even gets to TARP. Taibbi’s piece is both hilarious and infuriating, an indictment of a “too-big-too-fail” bank and the scoundrels in government who enable its criminality. Read the whole thing, but only if you have a strong stomach.

Footnote: Sorry about the excessive combat jargon. I’d been reading about the battle of Stalingrad. The Germans had just eaten the last of their horses.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Vampire squid strikes back

Posted on March 15, 2012 by oddmanout215

Yes, it was fun to read that column by Goldman Sachs apostate Greg Smith, even though most of what he had to say about his former employer had already been reported in one form or another by Matt Taibbi, who years ago famously described Goldman as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

And I’m not especially impressed by Smith’s self-serving act of contrition — although he gets points for revealing that some of his colleagues in the sales and trading department at Goldman referred to their easily manipulated clients as “muppets” — or by the predictable counterattack against him by Goldman and its allies at places such as The Wall Street Journal.

From ThinkProgress:

…Goldman has been quick to push back on Smith’s claims, portraying him as just a disgruntled employee. Some employees told Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino that Smith doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he “never made more than $750,000 a year.”

And of course, the financial press has begun reporting anonymous attacks on Smith, quoting “people familiar with the matter” saying that Smith was angry with the size of his bonus and his lack of promotion…”

There you are. You can tell the guy is a loser because he never made more than $750,000 a year and because he only got a “small bonus.” I wonder what “small” means in that racket?

Update: Goldman continues to respond to Smith’s confessional op-ed with its usual arrogance, although its shares dropped 3.4 percent in New York trading on Wednesday.

Posted in economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

PA voter ID battle not over

Posted on March 15, 2012 by oddmanout215

Pennsylvania legislators on Wednesday pushed through a bill requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. Gov. Tom Corbett quickly signed the bill into law, and said it sets a “simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.”

Yes, integrity. Everybody knows this sneaky corporate stooge, this governor who is despised in all parts of the state not dominated by crackers, signed the bill to block as many Democrats as possible from voting, and that the bill was part of a voter suppression campaign fueled by rich Republicans and aimed at Republican-governed states.

On the bright side, passage of the bill was only Round One in the battle over voter rights in PA. From Reuters:

Pennsylvania joined several Republican-governed states, including Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin, that have adopted stricter voter identification laws, arguing they were needed to prevent ballot box fraud. Supporters say the laws are no different from needing identification to board an airplane or obtain a library card.

But some civil rights groups say such laws discriminate against the poor who may not be able to pay fees for copies of legal documents such as birth certificates, and that they could suppress minority votes. Democrats say voter identification measures are aimed at squeezing out university students and senior citizens who tend to vote for Democrats…

Other states have encountered setbacks trying to impose voter identification requirements. A judge issued an injunction earlier this week against Wisconsin’s law, and the U.S. Justice Department blocked a new voter identification law in Texas.

The Justice Department, which also blocked a voter identification law in South Carolina from taking effect, said the Texas law could harm Hispanic voters who lack identification documents.

“Our legal team is currently mapping a strategy for overturning this voter suppression bill,” ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Reggie Shuford said in a statement…

Footnote: It’s interesting that the proudly penny-pinching Corbett eagerly backed a scheme that would cost the state so much money:

The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center estimated the legislation would cost $11 million. In order to withstand legal challenges, the state must provide photo IDs for free, notify and educate voters about the new voting restrictions, hire more election staff, and purchase additional photo ID equipment.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CNN reports government conspiracy!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by oddmanout215

Did you hear about this thing called the military-industrial complex, a deep-seated alliance between the U.S. government and American corporations that makes sure we are almost always involved in wars, declared or undeclared? Dwight Eisenhower identified it in 1961, and this week CNN caught on. From Raw Story:

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty railed against the United States’ ongoing involvement in Afghanistan following the alleged murder of 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue U.S. soldier.

“How much is enough?” he said Tuesday. “The United States has been in Afghanistan for more than ten years. And President Obama insists we will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014. Why? What will be accomplished by staying in that godforsaken hellhole for another 20 months that hasn’t been accomplished in 10 and a half years…?”

“Why don’t the American people have anything to say about what we’re doing?” Cafferty added. “We have no voice in any of this stuff any more. They go into Iraq, they go into Afghanistan, they might go into Iran. We got nothing. We’re just kept in the dark and the government does whatever the hell it feels like doing, or preferably what it is being told to do by the people who pay the politicians’ bills. Remember that warning from Dwight Eisenhower about the military-industrial complex? It’s got this country by the throat.”

Yes, I’m being a smart-ass. Cafferty’s commentary was on the money and necessary, if only because so many Americans are still asleep to the fact that the two wars on the other side of the world are killing our credibility, not to mention hundreds of thousands of people.

But still — why weren’t the talking heads stating the obvious years ago?

Posted in history, humor, Iraq war, mainstream media | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

New chapter in jolly-good scandal

Posted on March 14, 2012 by oddmanout215

From GUARDIAN UK

Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand gal is back in the news and back in jail. How much damage will her latest setback do to Britain’s PM, David Cameron? From Guardian UK:

Rebekah Brooks is among six people arrested by Scotland Yard detectives on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as part of the investigation into phone hacking. The former News International chief executive was arrested at her home in Oxfordshire by detectives from Operation Weeting. Sources also said that her husband, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, was arrested…

The former Sun and News of the World editor was held in the summer 48 hours after she resigned as News International’s chief executive.

Rebekah Brooks became editor of the News of the World in 2000, before moving to the same position at the Sun in 2003. A close confidante of Rupert Murdoch in her time at the titles, she was elevated to become chief executive at News International in 2009, until she was forced to resign in July of last year as hacking allegations mounted in the wake of the revelation that a phone belonging to missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler was targeted.

Both Rebekah and Charlie Brooks are close Oxfordshire neighbours of David Cameron. Their friendship with the prime minister came under fresh scrutiny recently after Cameron admitted he did ride a retired police horse lent to Rebekah Brooks by Scotland Yard in 2008…

The Cameron angle was stressed in today’s Daily Beast:

Some Murdoch watchers have even insinuated that Cameron’s friendship with Rebekah Brooks could be stronger than his friendship with her husband. Rebekah was a guest at Cameron’s 40th-birthday party in October 2006, even though her future husband was reportedly not on the list. And a Vanity Fair story last month claimed the two were so close that Cameron signed letters to her, “Love, David.”

Pull yourself together, man! Don’t you know those hot-tempered redheads — Daily Beast called Rebekah the “flame-haired Murdoch favorite” — are nothing but trouble? I thought you were a stalwart advocate of austerity… or did you merely mean austerity for the poor?

Footnote: Why did the Daily Beast article sound like something out of Vanity Fair? Oh, of course — Tina Brown.

Posted in Great Recession, mainstream media | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Santorum, the ‘stealth lobbyist’

Posted on March 13, 2012 by oddmanout215

The headline alone was enough to make me laugh: “Santorum accuses Fox News of shilling for Romney.” This is like Madonna accusing a rival diva of lip-synching. It’s another example of why many of us use the words “Christian” and “hypocrite” interchangeably.

According to Raw Story, Santorum complained to Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade that “[Romney] has had a 10-to-1 money advantage. He has Fox News shilling for him every day. No offense, Brian, but I see it.”

Santorum should choose his words more carefully. “Shilling” might as easily describe what he did for a living after he lost his U.S. Senate seat. From ABC News:

Rick Santorum entered Congress with modest means. But not long after he left in 2006, the former two-term senator reaped the rewards of his time on Capitol Hill, earning more than $1 million last year in cash and stock for advising corporate clients, sharing his insights with social organizations, and consulting for media outlets.

“He has been, essentially, a stealth lobbyist,” said Bill Allison, editorial director for the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. “He has been hired to try to influence policy on behalf of his clients without crossing the thresholds that would require him to report what he’s doing.”

The rural Pennsylvania politician who boasts his common man appeal has traveled a familiar path for those who have left public service, Allison said. After helping to shape policy on the Senate finance and banking committees, Santorum accepted paid consultant jobs for insurance and energy firms with key issues pending before the politician’s former colleagues.

The work has been lucrative — in 1996 he reported assets ranging from $155,000 to $475,000 on the personal financial disclosure form he filed with the Senate. The report he filed in August 2011 as he began his presidential bid show his assets are now valued between $1.9 million and $4 million, including rental properties and robust investment and college savings funds.

A shill gets paid to enthusiastically promote an entity, often without disclosing the extent of his ties to that entity. Is there a difference between a shill and an under-the-radar influence peddler such as Santorum? Maybe, but I’ll bet you’d have a hard time making the distinction to any reasonable person.

Posted in Congress, mainstream media, Mitt Romney, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Socialism is not a dirty word

Posted on March 12, 2012 by oddmanout215

I saw this video at Suburban Guerrilla and thought of all the people I know who probably didn’t see it…

In his travels, journalist and author David Cay Johnston talked to a dozen tour-bus drivers in beautiful downtown Stockholm and discovered that each of them owned two homes free and clear. After his WTF! moment passed, Johnston put together a few thoughts on why Sweden is such a civilized place to live:

It’s because [Swedes] organize their economy to provide what Adam Smith said in The Wealth of Nations an economy should do. [Smith thought] any policy that benefits the majority must be good policy.

We organize our economy on the theory that the very, very richest among us, the multibillionaires, don’t have enough, and that unless we give them more, our economy can’t grow. That’s just nonsense!

There’s a reason you don’t read or see stories like Johnston’s in the corporate media: The billionaires and their stooges long ago decided that what we don’t know can’t hurt them.

Footnote: This post corrects an earlier post in which I referred to David Cay Johnston as an economist.

Posted in livable cities, mainstream media | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Serfs don’t need no schoolin’

Posted on March 9, 2012 by oddmanout215

Uneducated = ignorant and apathetic, which is just fine with Romney and his cronies

Many politicians and business leaders these days think the public education system is overvalued. After all, you don’t need to read The Great Gatsby to operate a power mower. You don’t have to know the atomic weight of carbon to empty bedpans or flip burgers. So why the fuss over the fact that Congress might allow the fixed interest rate on Stafford government-subsidized loans for college students to double this summer?

We know why the yahoo wing of the Republican Party — Rick Santorum is in the vanguard — thinks college educations are for snobs. It’s because colleges are staffed by the sort of people who teach evolution and contraception, and make you read things like Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man.

But many of us don’t understand why savvy businessmen such as Mitt Romney are just as likely as the yahoos to take a stand against government-subsidized education of the working classes. Paul Krugman explained today:

… Over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers. You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an under-trained work force.

And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity?

So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education. And they have made this break because they believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt them.

Krugman might have added that Romney and his CEO cronies — cheered on by media agents for globalization, such as the New York Times’ Tom Friedman — care nothing about fixing America’s education system because they care nothing about Americans. Once the global economy became a reality, they no longer had a reason to invest in education. They could outsource jobs that require advanced education, or import highly skilled workers. Anything but pay taxes to help educate Americans to do those jobs!

Yes, it’s true that college education isn’t for everybody, and that the need for trades people of all sorts is as important as the need for college-educated workers. But the ruling class’s antipathy to public education is about more than this. It’s about belief in government for the few rather than the many, and about the arrogant assumption by bloodless drones like Romney that the majority of Americans are going to passively accept serfdom as their lot in life.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, globalization, Great Recession, Mitt Romney, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Gabriel to Limbaugh: Lay off my tunes

Posted on March 8, 2012 by oddmanout215

It looks like Rush Limbaugh might have to stoop to using Ted Nugent’s music as soundtracks for his rants. I can’t think of any other rocker who might be a good fit. From USA Today:

Peter Gabriel doesn’t want Rush Limbaugh’s radio show to use his music, in the wake of the Sandra Fluke controversy.

Gabriel’s song Sledgehammer played in the background while Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she testified at a congressional hearing about contraception, reports CBS News.

On his Facebook page, a note was posted from Gabriel’s reps saying the rocker was “appalled to learn that his music was linked to Rush Limbaugh’s extraordinary attack.”

The statement adds, “It is obvious from anyone that knows Peter’s work that he would never approve such a use. He has asked his representatives to make sure his music is withdrawn and especially from these unfair aggressive and ignorant comments. “

Posted in arts, humor, pop music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment